226 
BRITISH PHARMACEUTICAL CONFERENCE. 
it sacrifices only one point, that of the grain, to give uniformity in our fluid 
measures with our weights, and the whole with the imperial measures and au - 
thorized commercial weights of the kingdom ; while the Irish plan, by retaining 
the agreement of the apothecaries’ with the troy grain, continues the discre¬ 
pancy between the grain and minim, making 54 grains and a fraction equal the 
dram and 60 minims equal the fluid dram. It also produces complication 
in the ounce and smaller weights, from the fractions of the grain involved in 
them. 
The modification of the Irish system which I have ventured to propose would 
avoid these objections ; it would adopt the avoirdupois pound and ounce, the 
old pint, the fluid ounce, and fluid dram. The dram would still be the 
eighth of an ounce, the scruple the third of a dram, and the grain would 
so nearly correspond with the troy grain that the most critical could not ob¬ 
ject to the change, excepting as affecting some not frequently occurring scien¬ 
tific operations. The greatest change in the value would be in the minim, 
which in this table is increased from 0*911 to 1*012 troy grains, and this would 
not involve any risk or inconvenience. 
Upon the whole, I believe this would be found the most advantageous change 
which the pharmaceutical body could make in their weights and measures, see¬ 
ing that they have not the power to change the other authorized systems of the 
kingdom. 
Secondly, supposing we have to select a system which shall be used for all 
purposes throughout Britain, there is not the same necessity that it should 
harmonize with the troy and avoirdupois weights, though a simple relation be¬ 
tween some prominent weight in each is desirable as a means of converting 
quantity of one scale into quantity of the other. There is more need that it 
should harmonize with the weights and measures of other countries; there is the 
same necessity that weights and measures should correspond with one another ; 
also in this case the harmony with our arithmetic, and the abstract convenience 
of the system must have a larger share of our attention. The ultimate decision 
of the question depending upon the comparative importance we attach to these 
several considerations. 
It will readily be acknowledged that the most important question is the fa¬ 
cility of introduction combined with practical convenience. It is more urgent 
that we provide facilities for transactions between man and man in our own 
country than that we should take care of international intercourse. It is more 
urgent that the new scales should be well arranged in their internal structure 
than that they should assimilate, either with the scales which they will displace, 
or to those of other countries with which they will have to co-operate. 
The relation of the proposed system to our arithmetical scale, or to the 
natural processes of halving repeated to any extent, of squaring, cubing, and the 
extraction of the square and cube roots, must also have considerable weight. 
And, lastly, the facility which the same scales may offer for removing the 
most urgent objections to the present state of confusion, together with their 
facilitating the adoption of any system which may be eventually found best, will 
entitle them to more or less of our approval. 
The question will now be between that supposed best under previous circum¬ 
stances, and those then excluded by the required concordance with existing 
weights. 
Regarding the group of decimal scales, Mr. Griffin’s, Mr. Waring ton’s, and 
the metric, the only grounds for giving any preference to the two former is 
their superior facility for introduction, and their retaining a readily-calculated 
relationship to the troy and avoirdupois weights, thus facilitating our future 
understanding of expressions of quantity made under present circumstances ; 
but the facility of their introduction is not so great as to admit of either system 
